Posts with the tag 'FISA'
This is what gets serious discussion on the left, as NRO’s The Corner points out:
At the Netroots Nation gathering in Austin, Texas last month — that is the successor to YearlyKos — Dahlia Lithwick, of the Washington-Post-owned website Slate, did an interview with the Talking Points Memo site in which she described a panel discussion she had just taken part in on what is known as the “first 100 days of accountability.” Among Lithwick’s observations:
We’re already falling into this trap of either positing Nuremberg-style war crimes tribunals, or nothing, immunizing everyone from John Yoo up and down…but everybody says there’s a lot of gray area in between that, and that accountability doesn’t necessarily mean Nuremberg, it doesn’t necessarily mean nothing, it means possibly a truth commission, possibly appointing a special prosecutor to look at it…
Lithwick recommended a massive retrospective investigation of the Bush administration, going through every piece of paper, before moving forward:
Certainly long before we make a decision to do what Stuart Taylor suggested this week, which was immunize everybody in advance, or alternatively make a decision to trot them out before a war crimes tribunal before the whole world, we should really find out what happened…
But Lithwick recognized that there are those who argue such an action might be divisive:
We talked a lot about this notion that it’s bad for America, that it will rip America apart if we have hearings or we have criminal trials or if we have war crimes tribunals. And I think it’s really worse for America if we don’t…
The level of insanity here is breathtaking - and while one can attempt to dismiss this as the paranoid ravings of screwball lefties, the problem is that these screwball lefties will have a large say in any potential Obama Administration. These people appear to be quite serious in thinking of President Bush and his Administration (a moderate, center-right, constitutional American government) as akin to Nazi Germany. And do keep in mind that by implication those of us who support President Bush are criminals, too - at least in the minds of the left. These are not people who view me as a fellow American - they view me as a pestilence to be at least thwarted, and destroyed if possible.
It is imposisble for us to reach these people, but we can rest completely assured that we must stop them from gaining power - the plans they have, the lunatic assumptions they hold, are the stuff with which civil wars are made. Essentially, the left wishes to criminalise non-leftist actions and ideas, and as we on the right won’t ever agree to that, push may very well come to shove if the left gains power and seeks to prosecute us for what they consider to be crimes. I wish never to see anyone who is a fellow citizen of the United States as an enemy - but anyone who thinks putting President Bush et al up on war crimes charges - or even attempting to set up a truth commission - is someone who has definitively set themselves up as my enemy. Not a fellow citizen with ideas I think wrong, but an enemy I’ll fight.
Tags: Afghanistan, Conservatism, FISA, Gitmo, Iraq, liberal lies, political ideology, Signals Intelligence Program
August 7th, 2008
The ACLU is screaming that there are a million names on it and that we all must tremble in fear for our liberties due to the very existence of this list. John Stephenson at Pajamas Media notes the few good points the ACLU makes (notably that the list needs to be better managed - something, of course, the government freely acknowledges), and then goes on to indicate why the leftwing fear-mongering over this is a bit strained, to say the least:
I have given the ACLU credit on this issue; now I will give reasons to be skeptical. The claim that there are one million individuals on the terror watch list is a myth created through the exaggerated “estimations” of the ACLU. The truth is there are less than 400,000 individuals on the consolidated terrorist watch list, and less than 50,000 on the no-fly and selectee lists.
Assumptions by the ACLU were probably based on a 2007 report claiming the estimate of 700,000 possible records on the watch list and growing by an average of 20,000 per month. Apparently, they didn’t take into account that the numbers do not necessarily represent actual individuals. A new “record” is created for every alias, date-of-birth, passport, spelling variations, and other identifying information for watch listed suspects. Furthermore, they did not take into account the name-by-name scrub that took place in 2007. Notably, 95 percent of those on the consolidated watch list are not American citizens and the majority are not even in the U.S. The shocking numbers the ACLU is broadcasting are simply inflated and dishonest figures.
Which conclusion anyone who thinks about it would come to - the operational word here being “think”, and thus we can see why the ACLU and the larger left is up in arms over this. The last time a lefty had a thought he was writing the Communist Manifesto at the British Museum…its been all downhill since then.
The tremors of fear the left tries to generate with this story is just part and parcel with the leftwing fairytale about President Bush - given that the left is living in an Alternate Universe where facts are subordinate to intentions, it is no surprise that each and every action of the Executive branch - no matter how routine - is cast in the darkest terms possible. Its also part of the leftist’s personal worldview - they see themselves as the pure-hearted battlers for truth, and as they are fighting for truth, anyone who opposes them must be fightig for lies…and liars, of course, will do anything to win, including spying on some obscure leftwing writer because he tells “the truth” about President Bush.
Just for fun, someone at DHS should slip into the list the names of a few liberal bloggers…so they can be found and really scare the bejabbers out of these professional hand-wringers. Heck, they believe a massive, nefarious, PNCA/Likud conspiracy is afoot, lets not disabuse them of the notion. We can have some fun with this, ya know?
Tags: ACLU, FISA, liberal lies, Signals Intelligence Program, Terrorist Watch List
July 21st, 2008
I mean, for crying out loud, these people are just nuts:
During Jane Mayer’s event today at New America promoting her penetrating new book, The Dark Side, a topic came up during the Q & A that I’d like to expand on–the possibility of establishing a truth commission for the Bush administration’s transgressions. The idea has been getting some play recently, both from Nick Kristof in the NYT and scattered across some lefty blogs (a funny parody here, another suggestion here). The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission is generally held up as the model for such bodies, which don’t have formal judicial power but instead serve primarily as instruments for the discovery of past wrongdoings by governments.
So far, when each instance of misconduct has been revealed — from the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes and waterboarding to extraordinary renditions and habeas-corpus-free detention of prisoners at Guantanamo — individual solutions have been sought and some individual actors have been put forth to be held accountable. But this approach is piecemeal at best and does not get at the connective tissue and the systematization of abuses.
A truth commission, however, would provide a more holistic approach to the violations that have been committed or ordered by individuals and agencies within the government. A commission would serve as an opportunity to look back and expose where the administration started to go wrong in its decision-making process; allow those whose rights have been violated to be heard; and give Americans on the whole a chance to cleanse our national conscience–and our image abroad.
I guess they really believe their own press releases - these people haven’t entirely been playing a political game (though there’s a huge amount of that in this); they seem to actually believe that we’re out there violating the constitution, torturing prisoners, randomly wiretapping innocent Americans, and generally acting like the worst people, ever. This is what they think about a center/right GOP President who regularly ticked off his own conservative base by reaching across the aisle to work with Democrats. Can you imagine what they’d feel like with a completely conservative President who was determined to fight it out tooth and nail on each issue?
This insanity on the left really has got to stop - this is the stuff with which civil wars are made. You keep talking yourself into thinking that you’re boxed in with no way out, and you’ll then start thinking of turning to violence. I think the only thing keeping the lid on these kooks is the fact they are convinced that Obama will win…but what if Obama loses? People who think we need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission simply will not accept an Obama defeat…they will very swiftly convince themselves that they have been robbed…and thus be convinced that there is no way to work within the normal political framework.
Look, lefties, President Bush really isn’t evil…and he really isn’t dumb…and he really didn’t deceive us into liberating Iraq. All of that BS was cooked up by the leftwing ANSWER right after 9/11…the typical lies communists put together about anything America does. Think about it - President Bush is being accused of the very same crimes as Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Reagan were accused of. Unless you want to believe that all of these men were criminals, you should grow a little suspicious that every time since WWII (ie, since we stopped being allied with communism) that we’ve engaged in any sort of warfare, the US President is accused of using chemical warfare, torturing prisoners, fighting for money, spying on Americans…its all a bunch of nonsense, people. The most transparant and stupid anti-American propganda…garbage even Goebbles would be embarrassed to use. Stop buying it - understand that the people we elevate to the White House are generally decent human beings who sincerely want to do whats best…and the servants of your goverment, especially those in the military, are so honor-bound and professional that they just wouldn’t do the sort of acts they are accused of doing.
Wake up. Stop being kooks. Get a grip on reality.
Tags: FISA, Gitmo, Iraq, Signals Intelligence Program
July 19th, 2008
Getting to be really old hat:
The Senate easily approved legislation to overhaul government eavesdropping rules in terrorism and espionage cases and effectively granted immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in a secret domestic spying program, ending a contentious debate that has raged for more than two years.
The vote was 69 to 28; not even close. And, as I’m sure everyone knows, even Despserately-Seeking-Triangulation Obama voted in favor. Each time we get to one of these major issues the Democrats shout about how they’ve finally got President Bush where they want ‘im…only to fold like a house of cards when push comes to shove. This is, I think, simply because President Bush doesn’t back down when vital issues are at stake and, additionally, he’s just a much better politician than the Democrats are. Democrats are good at bribery and log rolling, but they’ve really got nothing in their bag of tricks when confronted by someone who is determined to do the right thing.
Tags: FISA, Signals Intelligence Program
July 10th, 2008
